Ranking anoints UTS an economics research leader

After stalking the top spot for some time, UTS has taken the number one position among Australian universities in the ranking compiled by the international Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) project.

Based on the analysis of citations in economics journals around the world, the School of Finance and Economics in the UTS Faculty of Business was named top Australian institution as of August, with UTS academics listed the top three authors in Australia.

Dean of Business, Professor Roy Green, said the UTS achievement was no one-off. "We've become one of the biggest recruiters of economists in the world," he said.

"UTS has developed an economics group of national and international standing and we'll consolidate that with further recruitment in coming months."

The top rated Australian author in RePEc, Professor Adrian Pagan, joined UTS this year. He is the author of three books and more 130 articles in the field of econometrics.

Professor Mike Keane

Second in the Australian authors' list is ARC Federation Fellow Professor Mike Keane, a world leader in choice modelling, who joined UTS in 2006, while third is internationally renowned econometrician Professor John Geweke, who came to UTS from the University of Iowa last year.

Also appearing in the top 50 are UTS Professors Carl Chiarella and Eckhard Platen.

"The RePEc rankings are very carefully weighted and widely accepted, but they probably underestimate the impact of our top authors," Professor Green said. "For example, John Geweke publishes a lot of his work in interdisciplinary journals that are not captured by RePEc."

In The Australian last week University of Queensland Professor Paul Frijters told journalist Bernard Lane that UTS seemed to be the only institution "that had worked out how to hire big names in economics and give them the necessary autonomy."

Professor Green said the idea had been to foster autonomy and innovation in a collaborative context.

"We give them the opportunity to be very much their own people, but on the other hand we make sure they stay plugged in with what is going on around them in teaching and research."

RePEc is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in 72 countries, with participants including major publishers, universities, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. UTS has appeared in the top ten of Australian institutions from the first list published online in 2006.